Artist of Week 10: Vanessa Blaylock

Vanessa Blaylock is a performance artist who does a lot of work with virtual art. She was born on April 25, 1969 in Washington D.C. and grew up in the Georgetown area. In 1991, she earned her Bachelor in Fine Arts in choreography from Hong Kong Academy of the Performing Arts, School of Dance. In 1998, she earned her Masters in Fine Arts in New Media from Koninklijk Conservatorium, The Hague in the Netherlands. She is currently a faculty member at Erasmus University of Rotterdam, and teaches New Media Arts.

I looked at her website, and her art is in a few categories she puts her art under. Some of the names are called VB Selfies, .Re/act, .Re/search, World.ninja, and many more. I like her VB Selfies category piece the best, since it basically consists of different types of people living different lives in different worlds with different roles.

I feel like a lot of her art is a her expressing herself through using an avatar to express something she feels or what she wants to feel. I feel like a lot of her art has to do with protesting, such as the one when she looks like a punk and wears a shirt with the words Pussy Riot on it. She was protesting about the time when three of the five members of the band were arrested for protesting the campaign for Vladimir Putin after a performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. In this piece, she is protesting what she think is wrong with the world.

I don’t really see how I can relate to Blaylock, I don’t really do any art on my own, let alone virtual world art. I’ve also never participated in any protests or anything similar. As far as wanting different identities goes, I have thought about it but not really wanted to.